1. Field
Example embodiments of the present invention relate to an ear tip and method of manufacturing the ear tip and an ear phone including the same, and more particularly, to an ear tip having silicone foam and a method of manufacturing the same, and an ear phone including the ear tip having the silicone foam.
2. Description of the Related Art
Various headphones have been used for listening audio signals in a single mode or for listening high quality of the audio signals. Particularly, as mobile devices such as a smart phone and a tablet PC have been widely used in a recent time, there have been plenty of chances and needs for individually listening the audio signals such as many pieces of music and lecture files without any external noises and disturbances from surroundings. For those reasons, high sealed and fidelity headphones are now in great demand.
Conventional ear phones includes a body for converting electrical signals to sounds or the audio signals and an ear tip detachably coupled to the body and making contact with an ear skin of the users. The body usually comprises hard materials such as hard polymer and metal and includes some grooves and stepped portions at an end portion for reinforcing the coupling between the body and the ear tip.
The ear tip usually includes a sound conduit coupled to the groove and the stepped portion of the body and transferring the sound into the user's ear there through and a external sheet extending from an end portion of the sound conduit and surrounding the sound conduit in such a configuration that the external sheet makes close contact with the skin of an auditory canal of the user's ear and the user's ear hole is covered with the external sheet. Thus, an internal ear and an external ear are separated from each other in the user's ear and the environmental noises are usually prevented from being transferred into the internal ear from surroundings. Since the external sheet makes direct contact with the user's skin in the ear, the external sheet usually plays a key role for comfortable and natural usage and high degree of noise-proofing of the ear phone. Particularly, urethane foam is usually provided in a gap space between the sound conduit and the external sheet of the conventional ear tip so as to protect the environmental noises.
FIG. 1 is a perspective view illustrating a conventional ear tip having urethane foam and FIG. 2 is a perspective view illustrating the urethane foam of the ear tip shown in FIG. 1.
Referring to FIG. 1 and FIG. 2, a conventional ear tip 10 having an acoustic absorbent 3 is usually manufactured by inserting urethane foam into the gap space of the ear tip and the urethane foam is formed by an additional process irrespective of the process for manufacturing a naked ear tip having no urethane foam. A foam body comprising urethane may be provided through a foaming process and the foam body is cut into a plurality of cylindrical acoustic absorbent pieces 31 by a cutting process and a piece process. Then, a central hole is provided at a central portion of the acoustic absorbent piece 31 and a form tube 32 is secured into the central hole, to thereby form the acoustic absorbent 3. The external sheet 1 of the naked ear tip is turned over and the sound conduit 2 is exposed and then the sound conduit 2 is inserted into the form tube 32 of the acoustic absorbent 3. Thereafter, the external sheet 1 is restored to cover the acoustic absorbent 3 to thereby form the conventional ear tip 10.
However, since the external sheet 1 comprises silicone (Si) and the acoustic absorbent 3 comprises urethane, the external sheet 1 is not sufficiently adhered to the acoustic absorbent 3 and thus the acoustic absorbent 3 is frequently separated from the external sheet 1. For that reason, a protrusion or a stepped portion, which is frequently protruded from the sound conduit 2 toward the external sheet 1 in the gap space between the sound conduit 2 and the external sheet 1, is additionally provided at an end portion of the sound conduit 2 so as to prevent the separation of the external sheet 1 and the acoustic absorbent 3. In addition, the urethane foam has insufficient flexibility and thus is much more irritating to the user's ear than flexible foam. Further, the foaming process and cutting process for the acoustic absorbent piece are usually performed to every individual absorbent piece, which causes reduce the process efficiency of the ear tip and increase the manufacturing cost of the ear tip.
Accordingly, there is still a need for an improved ear tip and a method of manufacturing the ear tip by which the surrounding noises are sufficiently shut off without any feelings of irritations to the user's ear.